Weak gun laws failed to protect my mom

The six-paragraph newspaper article about her was headlined, simply, “Shot in Head.” It began: “Gay Chamlee is listed in serious condition at Floyd Medical Center after being shot in the head Tuesday afternoon. Her husband is charged with the shooting.”

Sometimes I imagine what she was like before – big blue eyes shining, long hair blowing behind her as she drove too fast, like any teenager. I’ve only known her the way she is now – bloated from her medication, face sunken where her right eye should be, a large scar running over her head. That she has no sense of smell and has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old aren’t visible, but I can see these things when I look at her. My mother has been this way ever since she was shot in 1985 by a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun, more commonly known as a “38-special.” According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, American women are 11 times more likely to be killed with a gun than women in other high-income countries. Yet gun laws in this country remain severely lax.

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, my mother had filed a petition for a protective order against my father. Protective orders are meant to make it more difficult for an abuser to purchase a gun but, because of a number of loopholes, they don’t provide much actual protection. Currently, the law in Georgia, where the shooting took place, does not prohibit individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from possessing firearms or ammunition, nor does it prohibit those subject to protective orders from possessing firearms or ammunition.

The bullet entered her head through her right temple, exploding once inside her brain. Her right eye was shattered, and a large portion of her brain was affected. She lost many of her motor skills and most of her memory. The man who shot her spent only seven years in prison after being convicted of aggravated assault.

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Reagan’s thoughts

In a 1991 New York Times op-ed, Ronald Reagan described the injury of his press secretary, James Brady, who was shot on the left side of his forehead.

Reagan’s op-ed, “Why I’m for the Brady Bill,” detailed legislation to establish a national seven-day waiting period before a purchaser could take possession of a handgun. “Since many handguns are acquired in the heat of passion (to settle a quarrel, for example) or at times of depression brought on by potential suicide,” Reagan wrote, “the Brady bill would provide a cooling-off period that would certainly have the effect of reducing the number of handgun deaths.”

As part of the Brady Bill, a five-day waiting period went into effect for a few years in the 1990s, but it was supplanted ultimately by instant background checks.

We must close the loopholes that have made acquiring guns too easy. Laws in more than 30 states allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to buy and use guns. In most states, those with temporary protective orders against them are not required to relinquish guns they already own. The victims of these so-called “boyfriend loopholes” are the girlfriends and wives of domestic abusers, all too often shot simply because their partners were angry, controlling and jealous – and a gun was easy to obtain. Federal, state and local lawmakers have a responsibility to act to prevent gun violence.

What happened to my mom wasn’t simply an “act of evil.” It’s an example of the system failing.